The dental restoration of a partially or wholly edentulous patient with artificial dentition is typically done in two stages. In the first stage, an incision is made through the gingiva to expose the underlying bone. An artificial tooth root, usually a dental implant, is placed in the jawbone for integration. The dental implant generally includes a threaded bore to receive a retaining screw holding mating components therein. During the first stage, the gum tissue overlying the implant is sutured and heals as the osseointegration process continues.
Once the osseointegration process is complete, the second stage is initiated. Here, the gum tissue is re-opened to expose the end of the dental implant. A healing component or healing abutment is fastened to the exposed end of the dental implant to allow the gum tissue to heal therearound. Preferably, the gum tissue heals such that the aperture that remains generally approximates the size and contour of the aperture that existed around the natural tooth that is being replaced. To accomplish this, the healing abutment attached to the exposed end of the dental implant has the same general contour as the gingival portion of the natural tooth being replaced.
During the typical second stage of dental restoration, the healing abutment is removed and an impression coping is fitted onto the exposed end of the implant. This allows an impression of the specific region of the patient's mouth to be taken so that an artificial tooth is accurately constructed. Thus, in typical dental implant systems, the healing component and the impression coping are two physically separate components. Preferably, the impression coping has the same gingival dimensions as the healing component so that there is no gap between the impression coping and the wall of the gum tissue defining the aperture. Otherwise, a less than accurate impression of the condition of the patient's mouth is made. The impression coping may be a “pick-up” type impression coping or a “transfer” type impression coping, both known in the art. After these processes, a dental laboratory creates a prosthesis to be permanently secured to the dental implant from the impression that was made.
More recently, single stage restoration have become more common, where an implant is placed in the patients mouth and a prosthesis is placed on this implant during the same procedure. Such a procedure typically reduces the number of visits a patient must make to a clinician, however, additional complications may occur in a patient during single stage restoration if an implant lacks proper initial stability. One way to help predict initial implant stability involves using finite element analysis (“FEA”) to attempt to predict effects of placing the implant into bone. These effects may include stress levels within the implant, stress levels in bone surrounding the implant, initial implant stability, torque required to seat an implant and many other factors. However, a real-time FEA simulation of the placement of an implant into bone has not been performed to date. Rather FEA simulations have only focused on the implant after it has already been placed into bone. Thus, a need exists for a method to accurately predict effects of placing an implant into bone.